This is a closeup of a beef daube. Note the orange, olives and capers.

Here’s how it happens, when you’ve invited 10 people for dinner. You make a beef daube. That way, you’re done cooking before anyone arrives, and you even have time to put on a clean shirt.

The trick to a successful daube is to start early. As in, a couple of days early. For whatever mystical reason, stew that’s been cooked, then cooled, then rewarmed again takes on an otherwise unattainable richness of flavor that’s impossible to cheat. This doesn’t mean the recipe is more difficult, it just means you have to start a bit earlier.Read more…

So I put some heat under my favorite cast iron skillet and started scrounging. I came up with a half-stick of sopressata, an onion, a can of chick peas, a bag of farro, some chicken stock, a few crumbles of roasted kale, and some parmesan cheese. I started chopping.

First, the sopressata, cut into little batons, cooked until rendered and barely crisp. Then onion, chopped and tossed in with a drizzle of olive oil. Next, a handful of farro, stirred and coated with the oil. A splash of stock. A stir. Another splash of stock, another stir, another splash, cooking the farro risotto-style until it was al-dente. Chickpeas, drained and added to the skillet, until they were hot, too. Parmesan, swiped through the microplane. Crisp kale, crumbled over the top. A few gratings of lemon rind and a squirt of lemon juice to finish. Dinner, done, just as Patsy capped off “Foolin’ Around.”

Come autumn, my thoughts turn to Shepherd’s Pie, that classic Celtic farmhouse recipe that’s the best way I know to use up leftover meat and potatoes, and the dregs from those bags of frozen peas and carrots that have been haunting your freezer since summertime.

Here’s a twist: Instead of beef, or beef and lamb, and instead of potatoes, try this: Sweet Potato Shepherd’s Pie with Sausage and Lamb. I made one last weekend, then scarfed half of it down while watching a three-fer of Boris Karloff movies on TCM. (In my defense, I’m old, and I also had a cold.)

There was a lot left over. Which is a good thing because, like so many other rustic dishes, leftovers taste better than the first round.Read more…

Negroni
Makes 1.Ingredients
1 ounce gin (choose one with a relatively unaggressive flavor)
1 ounce Campari
1 ounce sweet vermouthDirections
Stir together ingredients over ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon twist.
Note: Some people prefer their negroni over ice. No skin off my drink; if you want ice, serve yours over ice.

Consider: They add to just about every supper, from fish stew to meatloaf to pasta with tomato sauce. Put a bowl of toasted breadcrumbs on the table, and sprinkle them over the top of whatever’s on your plate, and you’ve just added an extra, irresistible layer of flavor and texture to your meal. People will cheer.

Plain breadcrumbs, tossed with melted butter and toasted for just a few minutes on a sheet pan, are perfect. Or, you can doctor them up with chopped herbs (parsley, thyme, oregano, you name it), or if you’re feeling extra crafty, use garlic-infused olive oil instead of melted butter.Read more…

But, after two solid weeks of eating pumpkins, butternuts, buttercups, delicatas, acorns and kabochas, I just wasn’t up for roasting it, mashing it, or pureeing it into a soup. I’d OD’d on squash.

Being at sixes and sevens, I started googling, and came across a recipe for chocolate pattypan quickbread.

It sounded like a good idea. So, I made it. Oops.

Here’s a link to the recipe, which I altered slightly for altitude (decreasing the baking powder by half). I’m sure it’s a very good recipe, and that I just executed it poorly. Happens.

All was saved, however, after I whipped a half-pint of cream, chopped up the bread into little cubes, and stirred it all together with crumbled bits of almond cookies into a bastardized, chocolatized version of Eton Mess. Under dimmed lights and with a nice glass of sauternes, the cake took on a whole new life. It’s something you can do with any cake mistake, really.

Here’s an idea for a week-ending drink: Grab a stool at the newly-opened Café/Bar for a glass of wine and a dish of whiskey-cheddar meatballs.

Café/Bar, the latest addition to the white-hot stretch of Alameda between Logan(ish) and Washington(ish), is a sleek, slick restaurant with a seasonal roster of food (some of it very good, some of it… promising) and what might be the best-looking floor staff in the city.

One thing that kale chips do have in common with Fritos is that they make good happy-hour snacks. They also look great floating on top of a bowl of potato soup (hot or cold). And they take seasoning like a champ: This basic recipe calls for salt, but a little chili powder, a dash of celery seed, and, believe it or not, a pinch or two of sugar are nice too. (If you’re using sugar, add it after the kale has cooked but before it has cooled.)Read more…